72-hours 'til dawn

My come-and-go memory seemed to have recorded a movie I saw in early High School with the title "83-hours til dawn." I do not remember the story but what's imprinted on my mind was a scene where the protagonist was wading across a pond one very dark night while his enemies were in pursuit of him. Well, that has nothing to do with this blog entry. It's just to give credit to the title that I have borrowed.

Today at the dinner table, we were told by our hosts about a horrible story that happened in this village while we were safe in bed last night, when a man was poisoned to death by his drinking buddy; errr enemy I guessed. The man was forced to drink an acid of some kind and he died after 24 hours of torture where his mouth and all his skin that was touched by the acid was sloughed off and rotted in 24 hours. Inside, the poison must have eaten into his intestines which caused his tummy to bloat into an explosive proportions. After that story was told, our hosts related a similar story that happened a few years back when one of the carpenters who was helping build their house in this village, went home, and slit his son-in-law's body and started eating the liver--20 minutes after he left our hosts' house. After dinner, Jean and I blurted out the same thing. "Ohh, please!!! Let's go home!!!" But of course we couldn't so we just went inside our room and locked our doors. (But now, I came back up, sat on the threshold hoping for a internet signal.)

The work here is almost done, and I can't wait to get home. Everyone of us is ready for a change of environment, I can see. When I start babbling like this, and getting paranoid at every glance or 'disglance,' that is the sign that I need to withdraw and gather my marbles. It's been a hectic two months.

That is why I truly thank the Lord for His grace, because without it, I don't believe any of us would be here, at this time, with joy and peace in our soul even though the heart has already left to go somewhere else, and the mind is ready to RIP.

72 hours more and I will find myself waking up at the dawning of a new day in another place...., another time. And all this emotional turmoil will just be a phantom that disappears into the night.

So hang in there, soul... we can make it. We can't not make it.